According to the Budo Charter drawn up in 1987 by Nippon Budō Kyōgikai, it is important that teachers and students “maintain an open-minded and international perspective” in their martial practice. The reason why is simple: keeping this kind of attitude, both the conservation and the evolution and progress of any art are more effectively guaranteed. This is the way it goes in all fields of knowledge: science, art, and technology tend to flourish and prosper where there is more openness, exchange, comparison, dialogue, and sharing. Karate is no exception. And that’s one of the reasons why we love to participate in the seminars and training organized by Roberto Danubio sensei.

This time it was a training dedicated to the preparation of the exams from 1st to 5th dan which took place in the Danubio’s beautiful Renshin Kan traditional dojo in Weinfelden, Switzerland. In order to benefit from those three hours of lessons and practice, we left Italy at dawn and once in Switzerland, as every time, we were able to enjoy the superb welcome of Danubio’s family and all his other students, practitioners, and assistants.

Danubio sensei has been able to create over time a kind of extended family that gathers students and instructors of the JKF Wadokai from all over Europe and which, in addition to his well-known qualities as a teacher and great expert in Wado, constitutes an astonishing added value. Every event he organizes, whether it is the Summer Camp (six days of full immersion karate training in a kind of sports paradise on the Swiss Alps), the Wado Spirit (a beautiful seminar that every year combines practice, exams, and conviviality), preparatory training for exams or a simple daily training, always turns into an opportunity for growth, comparison and deepening into the karate knowledge that cannot leave anyone indifferent.

During this specific training, Danubio sensei made us concentrate on the two-persons exercises to deepen the principles of Kihon Kumite, then he moved on to the Kata and, only at the end, to the practice of Kihon, in a kind of backward path that has led us to new meanings for those gestures which, after so many years of practice, could risk to wrongly be taken for granted. And also this time we’ve come back home with a new set of exercises and useful tips both for us and, in cascade, for our students. With the pleasant feeling of having taken a further step in understanding Wadoryu, walking on an authentically open and wide international dimension. A dimension from which, we can assure you, it is impossible to go back and which we will never stop recommending to anyone aiming to set out on a sincere path of technical and martial growth.

Did you like this post? Let’s walk the way together! Look at the Wadokai Masters in Rome international seminar: